I was paddling my kayak down the river here by my house. It's a nice river, clean and clear. I usually do smallmouth fishing and do pretty good, but a good ways upstream. This time though I was in about 18 inches of water, and noticed a bunch of fish, probably 20-30 of them, swirling in a circular motion counter clockwise along the bottom, and they kept doing that. 

What were these fish doing? I've never seen it before

What kind of fish?  Schooling fish will do that.

Thats how alewive spawn,...swirling in the shallows. Not saying thats what they are,.... but

If they were smaller fish, say 12" or less and moving rather quickly, I would just about guarantee they were gizzard shad. They're just playing

-T9

I looked up alewives and that's exactly what they are. I didn't know the river had those. Apparently they're spawning. The water was pretty shallow, only about 18"

Yeah, it could be alewives doing weird alewife stuff.  But most likely it's a sharknado. 

 

 

On 8/1/2016 at 10:09 PM, Preytorien said:

I looked up alewives and that's exactly what they are. I didn't know the river had those. Apparently they're spawning. The water was pretty shallow, only about 18"

If your river has alewives, then the bass there must be pretty impressive. I'm jealous!

Alewives are such a weird baitfish to key on.  I've seen them boil on the surface for no apparent reason countless times.  They're strange, strange fish, but they are a great food source.